


northern lights, silver sky

by courante



Category: Twosetviolin, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pianist, Brettany, Drabble Collection, Edwina - Freeform, F/F, Genderswap, Implied Cannibalism, Kitsune, Mild Gore, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27473491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/courante/pseuds/courante
Summary: on the first day you moved to helsinki she'd knocked you out with a snowball;it's funny,she reasoned coquettishly, her eyes gleaming like diamonds. you tackled her into the snow afterwards, gloveless, frostbite be damned --it was the start of winter and you were in love with someone who would be the end of you.
Relationships: Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. hair dye

**Author's Note:**

> a series of disjointed, nonlinear drabbles concerning the daily lives of [hulijing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huli_jing)/fox spirit edwina & human pianist brettany, from brettany's (2nd person) pov. yes i have brain worms, what of it.
> 
> please read the rest of the tags before continuing. anything bordering nsfw will be noted in individual chapters.
> 
> b & e if you're reading this 請左轉然後關掉這個tab謝謝

"you dyed your hair."

she turns to look at you from her languid position on the couch: eyes half-lidded in midmorning drowsiness, the faintest hint of red on her bottom lip. you'd just gone out to buy some groceries because you could not stand to sit awake in bed on a saturday morning. those are on the table now, among the stacks of records she'd forgotten to put away last night.

"do you like it?"

the air smells faintly like chemicals. you don't know how dyes react with her hair, or if it had really dried so fast in the hour or so you spent outside looking over vegetables. or if she is lying, again. her hair is now a shade of dirty blonde that could have only come from a box, but somehow strangely complementary to her features.

"it's nice," you say, shrugging. she pouts at you then, seemingly unsatisfied, but also completely unwilling to leave the soft confines of the couch. you sigh and round the table, dropping off the house keys as you do, and sit down next to her. "what is it now."

she reaches up and drags a hand down your shoulder, the length of your exposed arm. yes, of course. you lean down and kiss her on the lips, tasting iron as she flickers her tongue into your teeth—a reminder of what you signed up for. then again, things could be much worse.

“maybe I’ll help next time,” you muse lightly, as you pull away. she blinks at you like an owl and grins, sharp teeth and all.

"i'll certainly look forward to that."


	2. feeding time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied gore cw

you could be charming whenever you wanted to be, of course. perhaps you are even a little proud of the fact that this was what had led her to you, because you were not afraid of the bloodstains on your blouse or the teeth marks on your shoulder. 

you know she is a skittish thing at times, hiding behind your thorns, but she could do things you could not. when you had first arrived to this city you learned to look away when you saw red in the otherwise pristine bathtub and turn the channel when the anchor would start with the reports: growing crime, terrified people. at night, when you sit pensive on the piano stool and play clair de lune, you ignore the faint, wet sounds coming from the kitchen. 

she has never been good at cleaning up, but it's something that can be learned.


	3. hotpot

occasionally you feel masochistic, and she homesick. there is a sichuanese restaurant a few blocks away from your apartment, tucked away in a corner near where you get your groceries. she would eat the livers raw before you have a chance to plop them into the spicy broth, but maybe it's for the best for your stomach is a void more supernatural than her existence. you would order too many bottles of beer and pass out one-and-a-half in and she'd drag your unconscious ass out into the snow, hail down a cab with her increasingly impeccable finnish, and make sure you don't die on the way home.

"is this why you keep your hair short?" she asks once, when you'd finished with the toilet. you don't like the migraines you get when she pulls at your hair, but you just shrug and say yes, that’s exactly why.


	4. moving day

you have very few neighbors; remnants of those who did not get bothered enough by your midnight practicing to move and those who had yet to get on her nerves. "do not eat the neighbors," you'd told her sternly on move-in day; she'd given you a look and said no promises.

(it got on your nerves a little, you admit—the fact that she always kept her promises, and the fact that she did not relent on this one, for whatever reason.)

there's a retired couple upstairs who are abroad for most of the year, leaving their overgrown plants to brown and occasionally fall and shatter on your balcony. two doors down is a young couple, the only other tenants on your floor. sometimes they compliment you when you enter the elevator together, perhaps because they've seen the posters in the metro. they are nice and usually too drunk to complain about all the sounds coming out of your flat at midnight, and completely, utterly forgettable. that's all you ever wanted, really.

still, you are relieved they don't disappear overnight.


	5. seagulls

it is february and you are watching _kamome shokudo_ for the umpteenth time on your laptop, on the snowiest of days. she leans into your shoulder and you are very aware of the scent of her new shampoo, goji berry and mint. for the time being you are trapped.

"we could do that," she murmurs into your collarbone. on the screen sachie and midori walk along the pier, among the seagulls, and you feel a strange stirring in your chest. "we could open a cafe downtown—"

"you don't know how to cook." and then, because you can't help it, "or would you like to be mrs. lovett?"

she scrunches up her nose and looks at you, pouting. "that was supposed to be romantic."

"still is," you reply, and kiss her on the nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is a very nice film, yes.


	6. eavesdropping

when you come home one night after a late gig you hear it as you exit the elevator; surely something that would've woken the neighbors up by now, but you hear nothing from this side of the hallway.

(you have a feeling you were not meant to hear this—you had told her you might crash at a friend's place, a sort-of assurance.)

for her birthday last year—insofar as she has one—you'd bought her a violin, because she once told you she used to play it, somewhere long ago and far away. you press your ear to the door and listen: the notes a little uncertain at times, but plaintive and sweet. you have never heard this piece before in your life.

you stay glued to the door for a while, until the music fades into the night and your knees are begging for reprieve. it is almost one in the morning, but you are far too awake to to anything about it.

tomorrow, you think, you want to stay indoors.


	7. supplication

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slightly nsfw (?)

in the past people used to worship things that run wild in the woods.

you’re not an outdoors person, not really. oh, you like going down to the bars and pretend you can play those games better than anyone else sidling up to you, but you’re out in a second and she’s always not far behind. you love the lights and sights and sounds, and the quiet walks in the city center when it’s far too late for you, human, to be still outside. 

this is a safe city. that’s what all the travel brochures say, and beneath the gloss and the tips of your fingers you know there are other things lurking out there, waiting.

she knows all of this like the back of her hand. how you smile and walk away from everyone but spill yourself in her arms in the dark and gasp her name in small hours of the night. _edwina, please— don’t leave me hanging_. and sometimes it takes those times, when her nails dig into your chest and leave marks too visible for you to wear your favorite shirt the next day, when she bites into your neck so gently, _reverently_ , that you truly remember what she is.

you are just a girl swept up in the big big city, but it doesn’t matter when she is in the shadows lost with you.


	8. nightlights

sometimes you think this is just as well: you, playing with reckless abandon, and she, despite everything steps deliberately, with caution. when you turn in for the night on some summer evenings you know your bed would be cold and the lights of the living room would be on through the small hours of the night. you would fall asleep to a nocturne or two, drowsily wondering if your piano saw as much use when you were out as when you stayed home.

you know this well: that the selfish part of you wants those cloying looks and warm laughter reserved only for you and nobody else. you had not wanted for anything growing up, so maybe this childishness was just late in coming. but you also know she will go to the ends of the earth to please you, and it scares you almost as much as it warms your heart.


	9. aurora borealis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey, long time no update. is this thing finally starting to have a plot? maybe. who knows!

you’ve always wanted to see the northern lights. you don’t know the science behind them, or whatever magic there is in their making; you just like pretty colors and the promise of clear skies.

there’s a few days of nothing in your schedule and hers towards the middle of march, a week after you get completely wasted at the afterparty of a big performance right before your birthday. _c’mon, let’s go somewhere,_ she says afterwards, _maybe somewhere i don’t have to take care of you like that_. you immediately go online and get the flights sorted out because any impulse control you might have normally goes out the window when edwina is involved, always.

you sleep on the plane the entire flight because you hate heights; she doesn’t sleep on planes for the same reason. it makes her jittery, perhaps understandably. she likes having her feet on solid ground, and you’re not sure whether it’s more animal instinct or because she thinks one of you needs to stay awake in case something— anything— happens.

nothing has happened. the cops aren’t knocking on your door and there’s no private investigator tailing you home, not yet. you don’t tend to think things will go wrong that badly, but she’s a different case.

maybe she’s right, but you’re already in rovaniemi and parked the driver’s seat and she’s looking out the window at the vast expanse of cloud and trees as you drive down the road towards the parks. a pit stop is made before you check in at a hotel at the outskirts of town; edwina complains about the salmiakki you bought and you watch her eat the entire bag anyway, fascinated.

“do you think there’s anything up there?” edwina asks when night falls. you’re in the car together parked at the edge of the winter’s last snow and the lightshow is just starting to appear. her eyes are bright and uncovered by her long hair and you think you can read some longing in it. you don’t know what to say.

“maybe,” you say at last, teasing a little. then, hesitant, “did you come from up there, too?”

edwina doesn’t answer you. then she starts talking about mythology, as she does: the red dragon, the bushfires, valkyries’ armor. she talks and talks and talks until she’s burying her face in your shoulder as you watch the sky dance before your eyes and all you can think about is fire burning at your lips and tips of your fingers and a desire to commit the firmaments to your piano, but you don’t know what for. and then you realize.

you fall asleep like that in the car, that night, instead of going back to the hotel. it is warm, warmer than it should be, and you have your arms wrapped so firmly around her as if she will disappear back into the sky if you let go.


End file.
